Heinz von Foerster An Appreciation (Revisited)

Reproduced below, with a few small edits, is a paper I wrote in 1979 for the International Cybernetics Newsletter, as part of its ‘founding fathers of cybernetics’ series (Scott, 1979). I offer it here as a contribution to this special issue of C&HK because (i) I believe my younger self did quite a good job of overviewing von Foerster’s career (recall, he ‘retired’ in 1976) and (ii) the article is not readily available to the current generation of scholars who, I hope, will be interested in finding out about cybernetics and exploring its history. I preface the 1979 paper with a Prologue in which I set the paper in context and draw attention to aspects of von Foerster’s early work that have perhaps been overlooked in recent years, especially with the particular interest given to his later writings on second order cybernetics. There is also an Epilogue in which I comment on developments post-1979 where von Foerster’s influence has been evident, in particular, work and writings that explicitly draw on von Foerster’s distinction between a first and second order cybernetics.